Legend of Grimrock

[Big Jack McBastard]

Just started playing this in lieu of getting my Minecraft fix and am rather getting into it.

It's a dungeon/prison full of traps-athon FPS, stabby, firebally flingy, rougelike which your self created party of 4 (I've gone Minator fighter, Human fighter, Insect mage and Lizardman rouge) are tasked with getting to the bottom of, for that way lies freedom, maybe.

Unceremoniously hoyed into the pit you build your bods and off you trot into the unknown. Along the way running into the usual; giant snails, skeletons in Centurion armour, massive spiders, giant poisonous walking mushrooms, mini flying dragon things and I imagine trolls and awful elemental gits who I'm currently wholly unprepared for (and their mates) are on the way too. Occasionally you'll find notes left by a previous inmate offering what help he can though it doesn't always work out like he planned at the time.

You soon learn the tricks of checking the walls for buttons (there's a secret in the first room I happened upon by chance), pressure pads, which may or may not need to be weighted down in order to open up the path to further hellish nasties and nicking/placing torches, listening for a distant rumble of a door somewhere and legging it into the darkness to find out what the hell you've opened up before it closes up on you. It's just introduced teleporters in my game now so I'm bound to have some endlessly frustrating sessions pinning down what leads where and why in my future. You also soon learn that falling down pits is actually useful and while you may be momentarily knacked by such a fall and there may be multitudes of a-holes down there waiting to stomp you, there's also frequently goodies and more secrets and then even more secrets if you come back with a rock or a torch to spare.

The combat is hardly amazing, at first it's a matter of stand and stab then back up and stab again, but once you're ok with strafing and turning (and once your team is a bit better tooled up) you can run rings around most enemies, when there's space for it that is. It can get hairy when there's two or more groups looking to wail on your flanks or shove a lance up yer jacksie while you're busy hobbling the berk(s) in front of you however. Saving often and before you open any doors is a wise move, as is bottlenecking foes to an open/closeable doorway.

So while fighting can feel a bit static it can get very tense as you never really know what's coming until it's close enough to hear and often times they're proper phuckers (haha) who leave your front row clinging to the last shreds of their health by the time they're dispatched. Nearly every fight with any new enemy leaves me in tatters, most horrible when you back yourself into a narrow corridor with no escape route and find your team unfairly pounded into mincemeat by some lucky mob who've caught you short or in the middle of sleeping off the damage from the last lot.

Speaking of which, while you sleep you're intermittently urged on by a voice in your collective sleeping bonces who wants you to get down to the lowest level of Grimrock and boogie with him/her/it. I smell nefarious dodgy dealings there, the amiable beckoning sorts always turn out to be bastards in the end.

Also in recent 'shít-me-up' moment I hung around in one spot for a good 5 minutes redistributing gear between Baz, Queef, Fage and Bumrot, all was quiet until the whole bloody place started shaking like fuçk, dust dropping out of the ceiling and a racket like an overloaded train navigating an earthquake. I got to stepping pretty damn quick there I can tell ya. It has happened since then mind so perhaps it's not indicative of imminent defilement just something to spur people or wake them up if they're l33t H4rdk0r3.

Don't know how long it's going to last and I suspect replay value will to be low unless there are more dungeons released but it's worthy of a punt.

In summary: A bit retro, dark, mildly addictive, secrety, harsh and occasionally genuinely frightening if you've missed a spider somewhere along the way and pause to feed your group.

[Ignatius_S]

I've heard lots of good stuff – and it's always nice to hear more (especially I'm kinda planning to get it at some stage).

Any idea of the overall playing time for a playthrough?

Re: more dungeons – they're working on a free dungeon editor (the preview of which has been very well received), so I'm so there'll be quite a few....

[MojoJojo]

I like the sound of this, but I'll have to wait until it's out on Mac or OSX :-(

[Ignatius_S]

I like the sound of this, but I'll have to wait until it's out on Mac or OSX :-(

They are looking at doing a Mac version, but in the meantime, it does run with a WINE wrapper.

[Dark Sky]

I bought this in the Steam sale because I've heard nothing but raves about it.  Is there a Stupidly Easy Mode For Wimps?

[Big Jack McBastard]

There is an Easy mode but I'm not sure how much of that is lies to lull you into a false sense of security. Normal is pretty tough at times.